"(Freight railroads) are now getting back into passenger rail"

[PRR 60]

...

D&RG held out for basically the same reason as Southern. Their Rio Grande Zephyr train ran westbound one day to Salt Lake, eastbound to Denver the next, making three round trips / week, never on Wednesday. Amtrak initially had intended to run over the DR&RG as their preferred route, but railroad management was concerned about losing control of scheduling, plus having to accommodate a daily train each way rather than one train one way about each day.

Adding to the D&RGW's angst was that fact that the beneficiary of Amtrak running the Zephyr on the Moffat Route would be their arch-rival - the Union Pacific. The Union Pacific would get all passenger service off the Overland Route. By keeping the Rio Grande Zephyr, they forced Amtrak to route through Wyoming on the UP. A win-win for the D&RGW.

...

I recall reading a few months ago that Santa Fe also struggled with the decision to terminate passenger trains for the same reasons as Southern. Santa Fe took considerable pride in their passenger service, and had well maintained equipment. The article I read indicated that Santa Fe actually wanted to see more passenger service retained on their lines, and was disenchanted when so many trains fell off.

Had the Santa Fe been allowed to make even half the train-offs that Amtrak's takeover caused on Day One, there is no doubt in my mind that they would have kept passenger service in-house. However, any railroad that elected to stay out of Amtrak had to keep all existing service running for a significant period of time (I'll say five years, but I'm not sure of the exact length). Even with that, they thought long and hard about it, but ultimately the potential losses from all that service was just too much. Amtrak takes over, drops far more trains than the AT&SF would have had they been allowed, and that was that.

 

[Anderson]

Besides the railroads already mentioned, I think both the Reading and the Chicago South Shore & South Bend were eligible and stayed out, probably because of the limited scale of their operations (I'm just guessing, I have no idea why).

I took a ride on the Reading in 1975 (or was it 1976?) from Pottsville, PA to PHL. The train was either a single, or maybe two, Budd RDCs. I don't know the story of pax rail on the Reading, but Pottsville to PHL would be an awfully long commute, so the limited scale of their operations might be the reason they stayed out...

You've happened upon one of the other odd situations. My understanding is that (most of) Reading's operations were ineligible for Amtrak because they were classified as "commuter" rather than "intercity" operations; there's a "magic" break point at 100 miles, IIRC, that served to divide the two (hence some of the rail situations in CT). The LIRR was also locked out of Amtrak even though a few lines served similar roles and ran over 100 miles.

With Pottsville, I think it was more Pottsville-Allentown and Allentown-Philly commuters than Pottsville-Philly. These services carried over to Conrail (which did substantial cutting back) before being transferred to SEPTA/NJT/etc.

Notably, the Penn Central was also locked out, and was stuck with random commuter operations all over the place that it couldn't shed until Conrail finally got rid of them in the 1980s (witness Amtrak's "Michigan Executive" as an example of the back end of one of these operations).

Chicago South Shore and South Bend was for some reason eligible to join (the commuter operations might have been just long enough to "clear the bar", but they ultimately declined. I don't know why exactly, but my best guess is that the commuter passenger operations were probably a large enough share of their business that they'd have had trouble keeping up the tracks without them. Thus you may have had a case of either a small profit or a small enough accounting loss (i.e. the operation was cash flow positive but it was weighed down by shared expenses and depreciation) to not bother joining.

 

[PRR 60]

Besides the railroads already mentioned, I think both the Reading and the Chicago South Shore & South Bend were eligible and stayed out, probably because of the limited scale of their operations (I'm just guessing, I have no idea why).

I took a ride on the Reading in 1975 (or was it 1976?) from Pottsville, PA to PHL. The train was either a single, or maybe two, Budd RDCs. I don't know the story of pax rail on the Reading, but Pottsville to PHL would be an awfully long commute, so the limited scale of their operations might be the reason they stayed out...

You've happened upon one of the other odd situations. My understanding is that (most of) Reading's operations were ineligible for Amtrak because they were classified as "commuter" rather than "intercity" operations; there's a "magic" break point at 100 miles, IIRC, that served to divide the two (hence some of the rail situations in CT). The LIRR was also locked out of Amtrak even though a few lines served similar roles and ran over 100 miles.

With Pottsville, I think it was more Pottsville-Allentown and Allentown-Philly commuters than Pottsville-Philly. These services carried over to Conrail (which did substantial cutting back) before being transferred to SEPTA/NJT/etc.

Notably, the Penn Central was also locked out, and was stuck with random commuter operations all over the place that it couldn't shed until Conrail finally got rid of them in the 1980s (witness Amtrak's "Michigan Executive" as an example of the back end of one of these operations).

Chicago South Shore and South Bend was for some reason eligible to join (the commuter operations might have been just long enough to "clear the bar", but they ultimately declined. I don't know why exactly, but my best guess is that the commuter passenger operations were probably a large enough share of their business that they'd have had trouble keeping up the tracks without them. Thus you may have had a case of either a small profit or a small enough accounting loss (i.e. the operation was cash flow positive but it was weighed down by shared expenses and depreciation) to not bother joining.

The Reading service from Pottsville to Philadelphia came through Reading, not Allentown. The Bethlehem - Allentown service was separate, as was the Reading service to Newark NJ (and on to NYC via PC or PATH.